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Through team work to enhance the organisation’s performance, and improve the quality of life for workers and other vulnerable groups through organising, education, collective bargaining, tripartite social dialogue, lobbying for policies which defend their rights and interests and promoting diversity.

Our Mission

To be an excellent trade union provider of labour market services in Barbados and the wider Caribbean and to improve the quality of life of all Barbadians through participatory representation.

Motto

Unity is Strength, where there is no vision the people perish.

History

The Barbados Workers’ Union is a general workers union and was registered on 4th October 1941. It has a membership of 25,000 persons covering all areas of employment in Barbados: Members are represented in Agriculture, Tourism and Restaurant Services, Transport (Road, Sea and Air), Government and Statutory Boards, Banking and Insurance, Manufacturing and Industry, Construction, Commerce and General Services.

The Barbados Workers’ Union has strong international links and is affiliated to the following International Trade Secretariats:

The Barbados Workers’ Union also has close fraternal links with the following National and International Organisations:

International Labour Organisation

International Trade Union Confederation

Inter-American Regional Organisation of Workers

American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organisations

Canadian Labour Congress

British Trades Union Congress

Commonwealth Trade Union Council

The Barbados Workers’ Union is affiliated to the Caribbean Congress of Labour (CCL), which is headquartered in Barbados and is a member of The Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados (CTUSAB), which has its registered offices at “Solidarity House”, Harmony Hall, St. Michael.

The union is governed by an Executive Council which is elected annually at an Annual Delegates’ Conference which is held in the on the last Saturday in August and the first Saturday in September. The day to day administration is in the hands of the General Secretary who is a member of the Executive Council (the General Secretary has the right to speak at meetings of the Council but he cannot vote).

The union has a staff of fifty persons working in the following departments:

Industrial Relations

Finance and Administration

Research

Education

Public Relations and Communications

Counseling and Wellness

Objects

The objects of the union are set out at Rule 2 of the Rules and Regulations of the Union and include:

To secure the complete organisation in the union of all workers employed in all the trades, industries, and occupations in the island.

To obtain and maintain just wages, reasonable working hours, holidays and other conditions of employment, and generally to protect the interests of its members.

To secure legislation which will safeguard and improve the economic security and social welfare of workers, protect and extend our democratic institutions and civil rights and liberties

Generally to promote the material, social and educational welfare of the members in any lawful manner in which the Annual Conference may from time to time deem expedient.